"I also had dreams of you," she answered. "They came to me after Edra
had told me how pale and sad you had grown."

"Tell me one of your dreams, darling."

"I dreamed that I was lying awake on my bed, with the moon shining on
me; I was cold, and crying bitterly because I had been left so long
alone. All at once I saw you standing at my side in the moonlight. 'Poor
Yoletta,' you said, 'your tears have chilled you like winter rain.' Then
you kissed them dry, and when you had put your arms about me, I drew
your face against my bosom, and rested warm and happy in your love."

Oh, how her delicious words maddened me! Even my tongue and lips
suddenly became dry as ashes with the fever in me, and could only
whisper huskily when I strove to answer. I released her from my arms and
sat down on the fallen tree, all my blissful raptures turned to a great
despondence. Would it always be thus--would she continue to embrace me,
and speak words that simulated passion while no such feeling touched her
heart? Such a state of things could not endure, and my passion, mocked
and baffled again and again, would rend me to pieces, and hurl me on to
madness and self-destruction. For how many men had been driven by love
to such an end, and the women they had worshiped, and miserably died
for, compared with Yoletta, were like creatures of clay compared with
one of the immortals. And was she not a being of a higher order than
myself? It was folly to think otherwise. But how had mortals always
fared when they aspired to mate with celestials? I tried then to
remember something bearing on this important point, but my mind was
becoming strangely confused. I closed my eyes to think, and presently
opening them again, saw Yoletta kneeling before me, gazing up into my
face with an alarmed expression.